What??? Whoa!!! I stumbled upon Sick-o-pathics from the
mid-â90s and read along the cast. First of all, David Warbeck is
one of my fave Brits-Tour-Of-Duty-In-Italian-Gore actors ever,
but then I saw Lucio Fulci, plus his daughter, and then there's
Linnea Quigley, Joe D'Amato, and Luigi Cozzi. Okay, most are
only in guest cameos (David gets a nice part in story 3) but
it's cool because this is a piece of history for fans of the
'80s.

However, what's this anthology film like as a work of
entertainment? It's a punk DIY affair with a ton of stupid jokes
and lashings of grubby blood. You know what you're up against as
the opening shot shows a pile of dog shit labelled: âTypical
Italian Movie.â Indeed. Straight after that, there's a street
sweeper acting like a twat who hotshots a coke can with his
brush only for it to bounce back against his head. 'Bonk' says a
Batman exclamation. Oh dear.

So we've got a swaggering bloke, Max, brimming with attitude and
shoving folks as he walks down the street, accompanied by loud
heavy duty metal. Oh yeah, he also tears a childâs arm off.
Shogun Assassin/Lone Wolf-style arterial sprays soak
him and his mother. The arrogant fella passes the kids arm back
and the mother hits him with it. Ho ho, my ribs have cracked
open, I feel like a chest-burster is uncurling. This destruction
of comedy continues until Max finds his way into a huge building
via signs along the road.

âAhh, a new visitor.â hisses Dare Dane from the shadows,
his voice akin to Udo Kier. âI bet you're one of my many
fans. Would you like an autograph?â Dare Dane is a horror
director, apparently, and in this room is many of his chilling
effects work. Since Max doesn't know any of the guy's films, he
ends up knocked out by Dare's walking cane.

âYou young punks don't appreciate good movies.â Dare
snaps as Max awakes tied to a chair. He is made to watch some of
the directorâs work. Along comes a beautiful nostalgic shot as a
VHS tape goes into the machine, and we see inside as it begins
it whirring and spooling. Oh, yes, I used to perform basic
repairs on VHS recorders back in the early â90s as a hobby. This
sight transported me back to that time and I felt myself
aroused.

âHello Dollyâ appears on the screen as we begin to watch the
first of Dare's works. A bearded long-haired dude walks into a
mag and porn shop run by another bearded dude (who looks weirdly
like a younger me when I had hair!) and this guy is called Mr.
Sinister. Oh the comedy dubbed voices are so full of
imagination. As our hero wishes to purchase a nudie jolly doll,
he has to sign a parchment âas a mere formalityâ which
has symbols all over the place. Once signed, Mr. Sinister's
sunglasses glow red and blood splatters from our hero's hand.
Sealed and complete. Back home he sits in his boxers and opens
the box.

âWhat the fuck? Is it used?â his hand comes up covered in
slime. He drags her out anyway, gets drunk, and crashes out on
his bed. As he sleeps, the doll's eyes spring open. Fair play to
the filmmakers. The rising of the doll is handled wonderfully
and it's absolutely fucking creepy as it stands above him,
leaking gunk from its plastic vagina before a phallic creature
emerges similar to that thing Dr. Channard (Hellbound:
Hellraiser II) had holding his head upright. What the doll
(which is like watching a nude flick starring Shaye St. John!)
does to its helpless victim will make your jaw drop. I mean, I
had to look for my jaw, it had run away.

There's quickie commercials chucked between segments that are
quite funny because they are cheesy and lacking any translation.
Lucio Fulci advertises an erotic comic, and he looks quite
bewildered by it all.

Then we have segment two, âThe Poor, The Flesh and the Bag.â
Let's meet Mr. Porselli and his thuggish brute mate who gets
physical with a guy who owes money. They give him a couple more
days but he's poor as hell so he has no chance. The next day, he
does a dishonest thing in desperation by taking a bag left in a
shop by a neighbour. It's a locked briefcase kind of thing. Back
home whilst struggling to open it, he discovers it is actually
alive. The case has an eye, big teeth plus arms and legs.
Operated by crude but cool-as-fuck animation, it needs a modern
plush toy! Everybody nearby hears the poor fellaâs screams as
the bag simply destroys him â even Joe D'Amato who lives below
the flat. This is out of control and totally random as a story.
It has to be seen to be believed which is why Iâm not saying
anything else.

Back to commercials and there's only one this time -- a hair
rejuvenation lotion. Oh, and Linnea screams, because, yep, she's
a scream queen. Boo! Hiss! Rubbish joke!

The third and final instalment is the disappointing, âAeropophagus.â
A weird spoof on Anthropophagus, which doesn't seem to
know what to do with itself other than be a silly, almost
slapstick comedy. I don't really wish to go into details because
it's mainly negatives, but I will say that David Warbeck is
over-the-top, yet amusing as Dr. Loonies. Antonella Fulci plays
the traditional ill-fated pregnant woman in her only acting
role, and the effects aren't too bad. Aeropophagus was the only
survivor of a shipwreck years ago. He survived by eating cans of
beans â lots of them. Now he farts and kills people. I give in.

That's too much for Max, he breaks loose and the wraparound tale
winds down.

What I can say, which is similar to what I
stated back in my review for Goremet: Zombie Chef from Hell
(see review
here),
is that it depends on what you expect when settling down to
watch a straight-to-video cheapie from the â80s or â90s. With a
title like Sick-o-pathics, should you recoil when it
isn't a classy polished and well-acted masterpiece? No, you sit
back, chill out, and take what you're witnessing before you.
It's gory, it's sheer stupidity. If I'm honest though, the
shovelling of forced and tacky jokes in the wraparound story
made me wince. They weren't required at all.

The biggest saving grace here is the fact that there is so much
going on. Sick-o-pathics is out of control like a kid
suffering from ADHD locked in a glass cabinet. The effects are
at best poor, yet so appealing for the love which has gone into
every drop of gore and slime. There are moments where you won't
fully believe what you're seeing, and others where you're
tempted to just give in.

I'm pretty sure a lot of people have watched this over the
decades and missed the point entirely. This is a pure
dyed-in-the-wool cult curiosity and must be treated as so. It
cannot be taken seriously one little bit. Go in with that frame
of mind and you'll discover much enjoyment â especially Hello
Dolly, which is in a depth of its own.